Project 40 was much more work than play. Produced by three recent graduates of the Hyper Island School of New Media Design, Henrikk Karlsson, Lisa Lindström, and Maria Nohlström, the conference brought together 40 of the world's top interactive designers and subjected them to a demanding regime of lectures, parties, and deadlines.

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On the other hand, most designers found that Project 40 offered them a rare opportunity to meet and collaborate with people they'd long admired but never met. "It's so nice to finally be able to put faces to e-mail addresses," said Daniel Achilles, of Stockholm's Precinct Design Legion.

"Project40 was a great experience for me," said Peter Cho of Imaginary Forces, "It was great seeing how everyone has a different idea of how to approach motion and new media design."

For a more detailed inside look at Project 40, we've enlisted the aid of conference speaker Matt Owens, of One9ine Design. In the following article, originally published in Shift, Owens provides an interesting portrait of what certainly was no ordinary design happening.

From May 27 to May 30, 40 hand-picked digital talents from around the globe attended the Project 40 design workshop at the Hyper Island School of New Media Design in Karlskrona, Sweden. Project 40 was the thesis project for three former Hyper Island students, Lisa Lindström, Henrikk Karlsson, and Maria Nohlström.

"We are all privileged designers, working privileged jobs, here at this privileged school. What right do we have to develop a design solution around HIV and AIDS with no research or real knowledge?" one participant exclaimed.

After some debate, the participants and speakers agreed to stick to the topic and were divided into four teams. Each team was assigned a meeting place and given a limited time to brainstorm, explore, and present their ideas. Between team meetings, presenters lectured on interactivity, typography, motion, and sound.

First off, Mike Abbink from San Francisco's Method Design centered his presentation on typography and how it can influence design and creativity. His explanations of fundamental type conventions such as hierarchy, space, dynamics, and structure delivered new insights into how traditional typographic principles can result in smarter and clearer solutions. For some, these type explorations were a review; for others, they came as an unexpected inspiration to see how traditional typographic principles apply to the online medium.

Later, Reed Kram from Kram Design presented his interactive experiments from the MIT Media Lab along with his current work for Prada. Reed's interactive "Prada Map" presented an in-depth look at how interactivity could be used to zoom from a global look to a local, store-to-store exploration of Prada.

The end of day one consisted of team brainstorming sessions. Although volumes have been written about HIV and AIDS in the last 15 years, no material was provided to us, and we had to go on what we did know rather than being able to ask important questions.

Moreover, team discussions were often cut short as a result of Project 40's rigorous schedule. Much time and expense was put toward food service and making sure everyone had everything they needed. Over the course of the four days, many participants voiced frustration at not having enough time to discuss and think through ideas. A visit by ship to a functioning Swedish military base, while interesting, underscored the difficulty of finding the time and energy to address such an important topic.

Next, former Antirom member Tom Roope, now at Tomato Interactive, gave a "Jack of all trades master of none" presentation detailing his evolution from working on CD ROM discs to his current work with clients such as Levis. For both Cho and Roope, the empirical interactive experiment, where simple forms and lines deliver both the "aesthetic" and "interactive" voice of a design solution, served as an underlying theme.

Benoit Platre, from Paris's Ici La Lune, presented a series of projects showing how sound and 3D characters can bring personality and narration to a project. Benoit's 3D rave characters were a humorous take on interactive storytelling. Overall, the presentations of Platre, Roope, Cho, and Kram focused on the functionality of interactive design, and especially the use of complex code. Using C++ or Lingo requires a level of expertise that the traditional Web designer does not often possess. As a result, participants and speakers alike were encouraged to think deeply about the technological logistics of an interactive undertaking.